One of the most important lessons I learned when first writing macros for my warrior(s) was the importance of conditionals. There are a lot of times when the stance you’re in, or the weapons you have equipped, will determine your available actions.

Devastate/Slam

First, an easy one. Devastate requires you to have shields equipped. If for some reason you don’t, it won’t work. So I macroed in Slam for those times I switched weapons (to a 2H, usually.)

#showtooltip
/use [equipped:shields] Devastate; Slam

Disable (Hamstring/Disarm)

I struggled with Hamstring’s modifications in Cataclysm until I realized I was thinking about it and Disarm totally wrong. They’re mutually exclusive in terms of stances, and they perform somewhat similar functions (disable the opponent somehow.)

So, this button will change according to what stance you’re in. Stance 1 is Battle, 2 Defensive, 3 Berserker.

I confess, I considered putting Overpower in here for the proc aspect of it, but decided to keep that one separate because Execute is SO GOOD.

Thunderwind (Thunder Clap/Whirlwind)

I find it odd that the two AoE abilities I have at level 70 are another set of stance-exclusive abilities – it was another eureka moment when I saw that they had a similar theme, but one was Berserker-only and TC was not.

Kind of an odd one, this macro. Usually I’m hitting it in my row of defensive CDs (Shield Block being one of my favorite abilities), but that’s only available in Defensive Stance. So I picked two other abilities with stance restrictions – or, in Recklessness’s case, just having it be a better idea to hit it in Berserker.

Rend is another one with somewhat strange stance requirements. As such, I blended it in with Intercept, which is available in all three stances. I should probably find another Berserker-only ability, but … well, I play Prot, and almost never in zerker.

So… I don’t have Intervene yet, but when I do I’m pretty sure I’m going to want to combine it with Intervene. That way if I mouse over the mob attacking the healer instead of the healer, I still get over there and save the day.